ACT 1
Jörgen, the Wolf Clan’s second-in-command, raised a distressed cry of protest. “Please stop, Mother! One such as you need not trouble yourself personally like this! If you gave orders to some of the workers, I am sure they would help you in any way possible...”
He felt dizzy just looking at the scene before him.
This was Iárnviðr, capital of the Wolf Clan, a nation which had grown powerful enough to exert control over much of the western part of Yggdrasil.
In the rear garden of the palace, the young woman who was going to become the clan ruler’s only wife was using a small sickle to weed the garden herself.
It was enough to nearly knock Jörgen off his feet.
“Huh?” the young woman asked. “But is it really okay for me to give orders like that? Everyone already has work they’re busy doing, so interrupting them for this would be a little...”
Her reply was incredibly humble and completely missed the point. It was as if she had no self-awareness of her status as the clan patriarch’s wife.
“Please, do not worry of such things, and feel free to give any orders you like,” Jörgen said faintly.
“Hmm... I don’t know. I still think that might not be a good thing. If I start freely interrupting other people’s work like that, just because I’m the patriarch’s wife, that could affect their ability to perform their own duties. If I acted selfishly, it would eventually come back to harm Yuu-kun’s reputation.”
“...!” Jörgen caught his breath, his astonishment even greater than before.
Her remarks were something he wished he could play back for the wives of the other high-ranked clan captains, who gave orders to the people around them as if it were a matter of course.
Jörgen had been assuming she had no awareness of her status as the patriarch’s wife, but it was Jörgen himself who had been mistaken.
“I believe that is a wonderful way of thinking,” he said at last. “Then, how about this? I will use my position as second-in-command to place a request for people who are currently unoccupied, and temporarily lend you their services. How does that sound?”
The second-in-command was charged with bearing all of the responsibilities and authority of clan ruler when the patriarch could not be present.
If someone of his position gave an official order to his soldiers, then it maintained the chain of command, and there would be no issues in terms of interrupting their duties.
“Um, is that really okay?” The young woman still looked as if she were hesitantly thinking it over.
It was unbelievable how modest she was.
Jörgen couldn’t help but give a little chuckle. “Surely there are those who would find it strange and unconscionable for the wife of the lord patriarch to be covered in dirt and sweat. That might also come to affect Father’s symbolic dignity. Please, I ask that you grant my request and make use of my men.”
Jörgen figured that by re-phrasing it as a request on his own behalf, she would be more likely to assent. It was a calculation that came from his bounty of life experience.
“Ah! All right, I understand!” Mitsuki said with relief. “To be honest, that would really help. It was looking like this job was too big for one girl to finish on her own.”
“Oh, no, I should be thanking you for agreeing to grant my request. By the way, just what is...”
Bang-bang! Ba-ba-ba-ba-bang!
Jörgen’s question was cut off when incredibly loud noises erupted, resounding loudly everywhere across the palace.
The noises were so incredibly loud, they continued to echo for seconds afterwards.
From one part of the palace rose a billowing plume of black smoke.
“Wh-what’s going on?!” Jörgen shouted in alarm.
It was early summer of the year 205 of the imperial calendar of Yggdrasil, and the Horn Clan and Panther Clan were at war. The three thousand soldiers of the Horn Clan were opposing the ten thousand soldiers of the Panther Clan, with the Körmt River between them.
After staring each other down for some time, the Panther Clan made the first move.
Their patriarch, Hveðrungr, personally took three thousand riders and led them as a detached unit, crossing the river at a different location, and then assaulted the Horn Clan forces from their flank.
It was a surprise attack, but it failed to defeat the Horn Clan forces, whose advance preparations allowed them to employ the “wagon wall” defense. However, Hveðrungr wasn’t one to sit on his hands in the face of such a small setback.
He led his detached unit to surround the Horn Clan capital Fólkvangr, and thus cut off the supply route of his enemy, in a plan to starve them.
Meanwhile, the Horn Clan, their supplies cut off and their food dwindling, were running out of options.
“...And that is how things stand.” The Horn Clan army commander Haugspori finished his explanation of the present situation, and bowed his head deeply. “I am so very sorry for this situation.”
He was normally a man with a very informal and breezy attitude, even going so far as to maintain his wisecracking demeanor with his patriarch, Linnea. But now his brow was knitted and his face was quite serious and troubled.
After all, it would be no exaggeration to say that this conflict would determine the very fate of the Horn Clan.
And yet, it seemed there was no good course of action he could take. With that pressure weighing on him so heavily, he didn’t have the composure to spare for acting glib.
“No, you did quite well in holding out against them this long without breaking,” the black-haired young man sitting across from Haugspori said. “Thanks to that, I managed to make it here in time.”
And he let out a long sigh of relief.
This was the Wolf Clan’s patriarch, Suoh Yuuto.
He’d become patriarch at the young age of fifteen, and in just two short years had rebuilt the Wolf Clan from its state of near destruction into one of the most powerful nations in all of Yggdrasil. He was a rare and phenomenal man, a great hero.
For the last two months, no one had seen him, and there had been rumors of his death. But here he was, alive and in the flesh, looking perfectly fine.
Haugspori’s sworn mother, the Horn Clan patriarch Linnea, would surely be overjoyed to hear the news.
“All right, then...” Yuuto looked the man straight in the eyes. “Haugspori, sorry, but would you let me take command of your forces?”
According to the hierarchy established by the Oath of the Chalice, Haugspori was the sworn child of Linnea, who was the sworn younger sister of Yuuto. So Yuuto would be like his uncle.
This meant that Yuuto was someone above him in status whom he should respect, but he was also from a different clan — “family,” but not his family.
The only one who Haugspori had actually sworn his vows of allegiance to was his patriarch Linnea, and she had personally entrusted him with command of this army. Asking him to just hand over that command was unreasonable, and he had no good reason to comply.
Still...
“All right.” Haugspori assented without any hesitation.
His clan’s very survival was endangered; he was not fool enough to cling to thoughts of his reputation or saving face in this sort of crisis.
Most of all, this was a rare chance to see this incredible man direct an army up close — the skilled commander who had overturned the odds in many a battle where he’d been at a serious numbers disadvantage.
As one who lived on the battlefield, it was an option Haugspori couldn’t very well pass up.
“So then, what is it you plan to do?” he went on.
“Mm? Oh, right,” Yuuto said. “I should tell you and the soldiers about this, too... Felicia.”
“Yes, Big Brother, what is it?” Yuuto’s adjutant, who was standing nearby, replied in a voice full of reverence.
Haugspori had carried out numerous affairs with countless beautiful women; he was the Horn Clan’s greatest philanderer by reputation, and also by his own admission. And yet the sight of this woman took him so off-guard that he swallowed nervously. She was a woman of sensual and alluring beauty beyond compare.
And her gaze towards Yuuto was filled with a passion and heat — one could tell at a glance how strongly she felt for him.
“Can you bring me one of the long strings with the red sticks tied to them from our luggage?” Yuuto asked.
“Yes, right away!” the voluptuous woman replied briskly and ran over to one of their horses, returning with the item in question. “Here you are, Big Brother.”
“Mm, thank you.”
“Tee hee! ?” She responded to this simple word of thanks by giggling bashfully, looking positively delighted.
Felicia of the Wolf Clan was an Einherjar warrior wielding the rune Skírnir, the Expressionless Servant. She was skilled on the battlefield and off, and even able to use seiðr magic spells. Her talents were well known, even to the people of the Horn Clan.
Such a distinguished woman had just been given an order that would better befit a common servant. Yet, rather than look dissatisfied, she seemed positively overjoyed to obey.
With just that small exchange, Haugspori could tell just how great a lord this Yuuto was.
“What is that?” Haugspori asked, looking at the string of red sticks.
“This happens to be something I brought back here from my homeland — my secret weapon to use against the Panther Clan. For starters, we’re going to use this against their forces on the river’s opposite bank. We’re going to annihilate them.”
“Ah...!” Haugspori gasped and felt a shiver run down his spine at Yuuto’s quiet but firm statement. He clenched his teeth to prevent them from chattering.
At first glance, he just looks like some weak boy, he reflected.
Yuuto was tall and lanky; he just didn’t look very strong.
Someone as experienced as Haugspori could tell just from looking at a person’s gait what level of fighting ability they had achieved. Even being generous, this young man looked only a little bit stronger than a novice.
And yet...
I’m so scared, my mouth is dry. So this is the aura of the one they call the “Lion”! Haugspori found this boy, so much younger than him, to be unbearably frightening.
It wasn’t as if there was any hostile intent pointed at him directly, either. All the young man had done was show a little glimpse of his “fangs,” so to speak, and it felt as if the surrounding temperature had dropped two or three degrees.
Haugspori had met the young man once before, during the previous winter, while accompanying Linnea. Compared to back then, it seemed like the aura that surrounded him was much heavier, and honed to a far finer edge.
In other words, he was still growing.
That was a pretty scary thought.
“I have a report, ma’am. The Horn Clan forces camped on the opposite bank have begun to withdraw.”
“Have they, now?” Sigyn replied to the news from her lookout with a cold smile. “Yes, I figured it was about time they would.”
Sigyn was the wife of the current Panther Clan patriarch, Hveðrungr. She was also their previous ruler, a female patriarch who had managed to hold together and control a clan of rough and rowdy men, which was a testament to her greatness as a leader.
Due to the incident in which Yuuto had been sent back to his homeland beyond the heavens, her marital relationship with Hveðrungr was pretty much cold and dead. However, her capacity as a leader and the respect she held from the Panther Clan members was such that even now she had been given command over all seven thousand men of the Panther Clan’s main army.
“I knew that was the option they’d pick,” she remarked under her breath.
With the Horn Clan’s supplies from their capital cut off, all that awaited them if they stayed put was death by starvation.
There were generally two courses they could take in this situation to get ahold of more food. The first was to drive away the detached unit of Panther Clan troops that was surrounding their capital, allowing them to resupply there. The second was to commandeer food and supplies from nearby villages.
If they had gone with the latter, they would not have broken their formation, since they could have sent small parties of soldiers to procure the goods. The fact that their whole force was moving meant that they’d chosen the former.
Their patriarch was a woman who thought dearly of her citizens. That information had reached even as far as Sigyn’s ears.
The Horn Clan army commander was likely acting out of respect for that stance.
The enemy really was acting exactly according to Sigyn’s predictions and doing just what she wanted.
Sigyn stood up, her long, silky silver hair swaying, and shouted the command to her troops. “Okay, this is our chance! We’re going to cross the river all at once!”
Crossing a large river was one of the most dangerous situations to be in, militarily.
Now that the Horn Clan forces had pulled out, she could bring her army across the river and into their territory without suffering any casualties.
There was no way she could overlook this chance.
However, that was because she could not possibly imagine that her thinking right now was exactly what Yuuto intended.
“Ahh, hello, hello, this is Kristina. Father, can you hear me?” Kristina’s voice called.
“Yeah, loud and clear,” Yuuto replied with satisfaction. “Sounds perfect.”
The voice of Yuuto’s sworn daughter Kristina was coming out of a handheld transceiver, or “walkie-talkie,” which he was holding to his ear.
It was one of the many tools he’d brought with him when returning to Yggdrasil from the modern world.
Naturally, he’d bought a large stock of batteries for them, as well as solar-powered battery rechargers.
Thanks to these things, it was now possible for him to contact people over a pretty long distance.
Incidentally, they were a model not made in Japan. In Japan, it was strictly forbidden under the law for ordinary people to use these things, but there wasn’t any such restriction in the laws Yuuto had set for his own nation.
“The Panther Clan army has begun crossing the river,” Kristina reported.
“I see. Keep watching them closely. Contact me again right when about three-fourths of them have crossed.”
“Understood.” Kristina’s voice cut off with an unpleasant, staticky sound.
“Hahah... this thing is way too convenient.” Bringing the walkie-talkie down from his ear, Yuuto let out a dry laugh.
In the world of Yggdrasil, the most common methods of communicating information on the battlefield were either sending a messenger or sounding a gong or warhorn.
A messenger could relay fine details, but there was no getting around the time it took.
Using sound signals to communicate was pretty close to real-time in speed, but there was a sharp limit on the volume of information you could send, and it was also communicated to the enemy.
However, with a tool like this portable transceiver, it was now possible to give detailed information to someone far away, immediately, and to do it secretly.
Yuuto was young, but he’d lived through his share of battles. He knew just how much of a frightening advantage this tool gave him, and even as the one who had brought it here, he found himself shuddering at the implications.
“Still, I’m glad. It looks like we lured them out just fine.” Yuuto gave a sigh of relief.
If, by chance, the enemy hadn’t started moving within the day, things would have gotten much stickier.
Yuuto knew that once the Panther Clan learned of his return to this world, and of the Lightning Clan’s retreat from Gimlé, they would naturally be much more guarded and wary.
However, the Panther Clan’s current fastest method of transmitting information was a message hand-delivered by one of their mounted soldiers.
They didn’t have a postal system in place that they could use. Therefore, taking the total distance into account, valuable information would take until tomorrow at the earliest to reach their troops.
In other words, the current retreat looked to the Panther Clan as if the Horn Clan was out of options, playing right into their plans, but that ruse would only be effective today.
Standing nearby, Haugspori exhaled in admiration, and began nodding to himself thoughtfully. “So by deliberately acting according to the plans of our enemy, we can in turn make them respond just as we predict. This is very educational, sir.”
“I’m just following basic principles, that’s all,” Yuuto replied, staring out into the distance in the direction of the Körmt River.
Indeed, from Yuuto’s perspective, his strategy was textbook — right out of a textbook in fact. He didn’t consider it particularly amazing or clever.
One line of Sun Tzu’s was: “With gain, move them; with men, await them.”
In more modern language, it meant that by dangling the prospect of a clear gain or advantage, one could entice the enemy into action, and once they moved, one should be ready and waiting with soldiers to attack them.
In summary, by deliberately pulling his forces away from the Körmt River, Yuuto had held out “bait” to the Panther Clan in the form of stark advantages: They could now cross the great river without suffering casualties, and they could chase down the retreating Horn Clan troops and attack them from behind.
“Okay, what’s left is... Felicia, you finished getting the soldiers in place, right?”
“Yes, Big Brother, just as you ordered.”
“Still, is this choice of troop placement really going to be all right?” Haugspori asked, deep furrows in his brow. “One might say it leaves your main formation with a worrying lack of protection... oh, but I don’t mean to imply that I’m doubting your judgment, Uncle.”
This was a battle with the Horn Clan’s fate on the line. The man had faith in Yuuto, but of course that wouldn’t be enough to erase his apprehension.
“You can rest assured,” Yuuto replied firmly. “‘Many calculations lead to victory, and few calculations to defeat.’ I don’t start a fight unless I have a winning plan.”
He seemed to have a great deal of confidence.
“Hee hee,” Felicia giggled.
“Hm? What is it, Felicia?” Yuuto glanced suspiciously at her.
Felicia shrugged slightly and replied, “Oh, it was just that... I was thinking, it’s been so long since I’ve felt this sense of security.”
“Ohhh, I know just what you mean, Felicia,” Sigrún chimed in, nodding. “Just by Father being here with us, it feels like we can’t lose.”
Felicia’s face broke into a wide grin at hearing her own feelings confirmed so exactly. “Yes, yes, exactly! By contrast, when Big Brother disappeared at Gashina, it felt as if the very ground had given way beneath my feet...”
“Indeed. And now we face a force of cavalry with more than twice our numbers, and yet they feel like no threat at all.”
“Hey, come on, you two, that’s getting way too complacent,” Yuuto objected. “I’m nothing special or amazing, so don’t get carried away. No letting your guard down!”
He frowned as he sharply admonished the two girls.
This was a pivotal moment just before launching their attack, and they were far too lacking in the necessary tension. A single moment’s lapse in vigilance could be fatal on the battlefield. As their commander, he needed to remind them of that.
The two of them were both veteran fighters. Yuuto figured that a quick remark would be enough and that they would pull themselves together right away.
However, they instead seemed to miss the point of his remark and reacted to another part of it.
“No, Big Brother, saying you are nothing special is simply not right!” Felicia cried. “As I am always telling you, you are a man of surpassing greatness. These last two months were the most painful reminder of that.”
“I am loathe to go against your words, Father, but I must agree with Felicia on this. I would think that you, Father, are the only one in all the land who could have made that Steinþórr retreat with nothing more than a single gesture. Whereas I could not stop him, even when fighting him with everything I had.”
“Ahh, yes... I remember my body trembling when that happened,” Felicia sighed.
“Mine did as well,” Sigrún agreed. “I was so overcome with emotion, at knowing I had the honor of calling this man Father, that I dropped to my knees and lowered my head.”
Both girls closed their eyes and seemed to be absorbed in replaying scenes from the event in their mind.
Too late, Yuuto remembered that both of them had this bad habit of being unable to stop praising him once they got started.
And it seemed like it was twice as bad as usual today. Maybe their urge to praise him had been building up while he’d been away from Yggdrasil for two months.
It was something he could just treat as the usual antics if they were back in Wolf Clan territory, but they were here in another clan’s lands on business. This was starting to get embarrassing.
“Hey. Both of you...” Yuuto made to stop them more forcefully, but he was interrupted by Haugspori.
“You turned away the Battle-Hungry Tiger, Dólgþrasir, with... a single gesture...?!” Haugspori stared at Yuuto agape, eyes wide in shock, as if he’d just been struck on the head with a hammer. He was trembling.
“No, it wasn’t me, it was this trick I used called the ‘Empty Fortress.’ It wasn’t like I scared that idiot away by glaring at him or anything.”
“However, that still means you caused him to retreat, correct?”
“Um, well, yeah, I guess,” Yuuto said. “If I hadn’t, I wouldn’t exactly be here helping you right now.”
“You have confronted that monster and won three times now, and that is more than amazing enough of a feat to speak for itself. And it sounds as if the third time was an easy victory.”
“...Ughh, it would just be a pain to try to explain it better at this point.” Yuuto heaved a sigh in resignation.
The “Empty Fortress Strategy” was a high-level act of psychological deception, and pulling it off was nowhere near as easy as Haugspori clearly believed. But right now the Panther Clan forces were advancing on their position, and there was no time to spare on explaining things that bore no relation to the battle at hand.
Haugspori continued. “And more than anything, the famed ‘Mánagarmr’ and ‘Gullviðrúlfr,’ the Strongest Silver Wolf and the Wisest Golden Wolf, show you such complete admiration. It seems I have nothing to worry about after all. Ha ha ha!”
“No, listen, you really need to keep your head,” Yuuto protested. “We’re about to go to battle, here.”
Haugspori only continued to laugh loudly, and Yuuto slumped his shoulders dejectedly. He wondered if it would be better for him to yell at them seriously and make sure they understood.
Just as he was considering that, a burst of static came from the speaker on the walkie-talkie.
“Father,” Kristina’s voice said. “I believe it is time.”
When it came to intel, speed was everything. That was all the more true on the field of battle.
As expected, Kristina understood that. Normally, she was the type who loved a bit of banter before getting to the point, but in times like these, she kept everything brief.
“All right!” Yuuto called. “All troops, reverse course! We’re going to wipe out the Panther Clan!”
“Oh, my, looks like they’ve already lost all sense of good judgment,” Sigyn muttered to herself with a mix of amazement, disdain, and pity as she caught sight of the enemy reemerging in front of her.
Her forces had already completed their crossing of the Körmt River.
If the enemy had wanted to attack her, then they should have done it while her troops were in the middle of crossing. If they’d wanted to get away from her, then they should have kept fleeing at full speed.
Attacking her after she’d crossed was the absolute height of foolishness.
Perhaps, in the midst of retreating, they’d reconsidered and decided that they simply couldn’t allow her to get her forces onto their side of the river. It was an example of indecisiveness, the hallmark of a stupid commander.
Haugspori of the Horn Clan was well known even in the Panther Clan for his great mastery of the bow, and he had worked his way up to the position of assistant to the second-in-command while still only in his thirties, so he was supposed to be someone remarkable. Apparently there was no use trusting in hearsay.
People revealed their true worth most clearly when they were backed into a corner. More than likely, this Haugspori had been mentally worn down by the harsh conditions he had endured thus far.
In the end, this was the extent of his nerve.
“Hm... now then, what shall I do?” Sigyn pondered for a moment.
The enemy might be acting confused, but they still had that powerful wagon fortress tactic at their disposal. Judging by past results, if she were to charge at them carelessly, she would only end up taking on larger casualties.
“The more auspicious thing to do here is to withdraw and meet up with Rungr’s group,” she decided.
Getting seven thousand riders into Horn Clan territory unharmed was an excellent accomplishment already, after all.
For a normal infantry army, withdrawing from the field with the enemy right in front of them was incredibly dangerous, for it meant a high chance of the enemy attacking in pursuit. But the Panther Clan army was composed, to a man, of skilled cavalry, their speed and mobility the greatest in all of Yggdrasil.
Furthermore, they could fire backwards with their bows, attacking at range while retreating.They would surely escape the area with ease.
“Lady Sigyn, enemy forces also spotted on both the left and right!” a messenger called.
“Oh my, I didn’t expect that.” In contrast to her words, Sigyn’s tone was still full of confidence.
She’d already confirmed that the enemy had fewer than half her numbers in total. They were already a smaller force, and they had further divided their strength into three groups. It was enough to make her question their sanity.
Even their planned ambush had failed, since she had learned of their locations before they had a chance to launch an attack.
It was a completely shoddy display.
Sigyn focused her gaze on the enemy group on the right as she spoke. “We’ll start by crushing the ambush groups one at a time, then... huuuh?!” She let out a cry in surprise.
But it was only for a second.
Sigyn’s expression returned to normal, and then she confirmed the state of the enemy group to her left as well.
After a few seconds, she put a hand to her mouth. “Pfft. Heheheh... Ahahahaha!”
Sitting atop her horse, Sigyn burst out into loud laughter. It was such a hilarious sight to her eyes.
The enemy groups on each side of her were using the wagon wall, each group’s defense arranged facing forward towards her troops.
There were probably only five hundred wagons total, but their reinforced carriages provided incredible defensive power. There was no breaking through those fortifications with any normal attacks.
There were wagon walls set to Sigyn’s left and right, behind her was the Körmt River, and in front of her was the main force of the Horn Clan — at a glance, it looked like the Panther Clan had lost all chance of escape.
However...
“So how are you going to protect your main force, then?” Sigyn said with a smirk.
The enemy had divided up their carriages to bolster the defenses of the detached groups to her left and right. There was no doubt that meant they’d left their main force with far fewer carriages protecting them.
If they weren’t fully equipped to defend against cavalry, then a measly two thousand infantry troops were no match for her seven thousand Panther Clan riders.
What’s more, the wagon fortress tactic was fundamentally about holding one’s ground against the enemy and shooting at them as they attacked.
In other words, even if the Panther Clan was surrounded now, there was no chance of the groups to her left and right closing in to attack. That would require sacrificing the defenses provided by the carriages when they were locked in place, after all. There was nothing to fear.
“Looks like they really are confused,” Sigyn muttered.
The enemy had been so concerned with trying to take away her side’s means of escape, they’d forgotten about the most important part: They needed to be able to actually defeat her.
Perhaps they’d convinced themselves they were chosen by the gods to be victorious in this battle. If the gods were on their side, then of course there was no way they’d be defeated.
Certainly, the only thing that would overturn the Horn Clan’s desperate and hopeless situation right now would be a divine miracle.
However, as a practitioner of seiðr magic, Sigyn could be certain of one thing. The gods were not so kind as to show such favor to humans.
Miracles were the rare, rare, unknowable whimsy of the gods. That was why they were miracles.
Sigyn threw out one hand, and shouted to her warriors. “All troops, charge! Attack the Horn Clan troops to our front, and tear them apart!”
She was full of confidence in that moment, absolutely assured of her victory.
Of course, she had no way in that moment of knowing the truth.
Deep in the commanding ranks of the Horn Clan army, there lurked a young man who was akin to a god of war in the reverential minds of his people.
As the battle began, the air grew noisy with the whistling of a massive volume of arrows cutting through the air, fired from the Horn Clan troops.
Haugspori was, after all, a master archer. It stood to reason that he had assembled quite a few other talented archers as ranking subordinates in his army.
The Panther Clan riders were also excellent archers, but the smaller-sized bows they used from horseback couldn’t reach the enemy from this distance. Indeed, it would be an astounding feat if they could.
That said, the mass of arrows lost a great deal of speed crossing such a long distance. The elite fighters of the Panther Clan could use their gauntlets or short swords to easily deflect them.
In fact, this was all in line with Sigyn’s predictions. There were no real casualties to speak of.
Or rather, there hadn’t been until that moment.
Bang! Ba-bang! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang!!
All of a sudden, she was surrounded by a noise that she had never heard before, a terrible sound that made her ears ache.
It wasn’t only noise, either.
All throughout the Panther Clan ranks, there were bits and bursts of fire, flying this way and that.
The horses all began screaming, and so did the Panther Clan soldiers.
“Ow, it burns! Wh-what is this?! Uwaah!!”
“Wh-whoaaa, c-calm down! Calm down, girl! Eeek!”
“Snakes made of fire?! No, stay away, stay away! Whoa! Guaagh!”
What looked like bright red snakes coiled around arrow shafts landed among the Panther Clan and began spitting out bright light, fire, and noise, flailing wildly and wrapping around the legs of the horses.
Horses are, by nature, very easily frightened creatures. And, naturally, these terrifying things that spat fire and light and sound were something none of the horses had ever encountered before.
Even the magnificent steeds bred on the vast plains of Miðgarðr, renowned for their greater-than-average courage, could not help but be driven into a panicked frenzy.
They were rearing, throwing their riders off.
Even worse, they were desperately trying to flee from the spot, smashing into each other in their panic.
They were also colliding with the dismounted soldiers, sending them flying.
In just a few dozen seconds after the first arrows were launched, the Panther Clan troops had descended into a state of utter pandemonium.
And that wasn’t the end of it.
Just as it seemed the snakes of fire were starting to settle down, as if calculated for that moment, a second wave of arrows landed in their midst.
Bang! Ba-bang! Ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-ba-bang!!
The explosive noises and flashes of light and bursts of fire all began again without remorse, spurring the soldiers and horses into further chaos.
“Rrrraaaaaggghhh!!” It was then that the Horn Clan troops let out a tremendous war cry, and charged.
The Panther Clan army, horses and riders alike, were already stricken with fear at this strange devilry that they’d never encountered before, and they were in no state of mind to be able to fight.
Even if they wanted to flee, the wagon walls blocked off both flanks, and the Körmt River was at their backs.
Realizing they had nowhere to run only further stoked the fear in the hearts of the Panther Clan fighters.
“What is this?! What is happening?!” Sigyn’s confidence had vanished, and she was pale as a ghost, glancing hurriedly this way and that.
She was so perplexed by the unfathomable situation unfolding around her that she’d forgotten to continue giving out commands to her troops.
Of course, even if she had tried to do so, no one would have responded to them.
This was no longer a battle between two armies.
The massacre of the Panther Clan army had begun.
The firecracker: A primitive type of firework made by sealing an incendiary mixture, such as gunpowder, inside a small, hollow tube made of bamboo, thick paper, or similar materials, which can then be lit with a fuse and made to explode in a burst of light and sound.
This was one of the items that Yuuto had brought back to Yggdrasil from the modern world.
Firecrackers in Japan were items meant for amusement, and so while they could do a bit of harm, they didn’t have any serious lethal force like a weapon would.
However, unlike other types of fireworks, instead of creating a pretty burst of bright color, they were meant to make an incredibly loud noise.
To put it bluntly, they wouldn’t serve as anything greater than a bluff.
But that being said, one could still point to the Japanese historical example in the famous Battle of Nagashino: There was a theory that the real cause of Oda Nobunaga’s victory was not his use of three-layered volley fire with the guns he had. Rather, the theory was that instead of the bullets themselves, the terrible sound produced by the guns terrified the enemy’s horses, and that was the cause of their defeat.
It is said that during the Mongol invasions of Japan, the defending samurai and their horses were terribly surprised and frightened by the gunpowder weaponry used by the Mongols.
Of course, the earliest form of gunpowder had been invented in 9th century China, so by Yggdrasil’s standards, it was still something from over two thousand years in the future.
There was simply no chance for these people to have had prior knowledge of explosives, and so a large volume of firecrackers flung into their midst would spark confusion that not even a skilled, charismatic general could possibly quell.
That went doubly for the Panther Clan army, composed entirely of fighters on horseback.
“Sound all the war gongs, and keep banging!” Yuuto raised his voice, barking out orders in rapid succession. “Tell every unit I want all of them shouting louder! We’re going to seize this momentum and sweep in on them all at once!”
With five hundred soldiers each sent out to flank the enemy on the left and right, the Horn Clan’s main formation currently had two thousand men.
The Panther Clan army in front of them numbered seven thousand, more than three times their strength.
Right now, the Horn Clan forces had an overwhelming advantage, thanks to the fear and panic gripping their enemies, but they would quickly be pushed back if the Panther Clan troops regained control of themselves, thanks to that difference in numbers.
In order to prevent that, the Horn Clan needed to put as much pressure on the enemy as possible, thoroughly robbing them of any chance they might have to catch their breath and come to their senses.
If this was not settled immediately, in one fell swoop, then the Horn Clan would have no way to achieve victory.
At the young age of sixteen, Yuuto had already lived through a great number of battles and grown into a veteran commander. He was not going to miss such a clearly critical moment.
“Uurrraaaaaaghhh!!” The Horn Clan troops let out an even greater, bellowing roar, and tore into the Panther Clan.
From atop his speeding chariot (repurposed from one of the wagon wall carriages), Yuuto could see the dead bodies of Panther Clan soldiers scattered on the ground below.
Looking at the dead soldiers’ faces, one could tell their state of mind in their final moments.
Not one of those faces was that of a warrior. Every one of them was frozen in a twisted expression of fear.
Those faces laid bare the reality that, even though the soldiers of the Panther Clan were a skilled force, considered among the strongest in all of Yggdrasil, right now they were nothing more than an unruly mob who had forgotten how to use their weapons and horses.
In contrast, the Horn Clan under Yuuto’s command was an army moving with a single united will. It no longer mattered if this enemy force was three times their number or ten; it was no longer a threat to them.
As the Panther Clan soldiers ran this way and that, attempting to flee, they were slaughtered by the Horn Clan in a completely one-sided fashion. This continued for a while.
By the time they fully came to the realization that their only real chance at survival was to throw down their weapons and hold up their empty hands in a show of surrender, more than half of their number had already been lost.
“All right, how am I gonna deal with them?” Yuuto muttered to himself. Resting his chin in his hand with his elbow on the rim of the wagon carriage, he gave a large sigh.
He hadn’t gotten an account of the exact numbers yet, but it was obvious that his captured prisoners outnumbered his own troops. This was an unusual case for him, and he was a bit perplexed on how best to handle it.
He’d made sure to be on guard against the possibility that they might be feigning surrender in order to launch a sneak attack. But, looking at their ghostly pale faces and lifeless eyes, it was clear they were mere shells of their former selves, emptied of any will to fight, and so he’d decided to take them into captivity.
A smaller group trying to take a much larger group as prisoners meant that there were any number of chances for some of them to run away, but no one had attempted to escape, even as they were all being tied up. That just went to show how completely worn-down the Panther Clan fighters were.
“I’d certainly prefer to avoid killing them, but...” Yuuto trailed off, frowning deeply.
All of these captives were fighters of incredible skill, masters of horse riding techniques that no other clan in Yggdrasil could match, surpassing even the Wolf Clan’s greatest soldiers, the elite Múspell Special Forces Unit led by Sigrún. If he could get them on his side, they’d be his strongest, most dependable allies.
Of course, not many would forgive those who had drawn the sword against their homeland and people.
Even if some of them did agree to become subservient to Yuuto’s clan, he couldn’t be sure they wouldn’t betray him, and so he was afraid to integrate a large number of them into his combat forces.
On the other hand, it just wasn’t realistic to try and move around with a group of captives that outnumbered his own forces, let alone attempting to fight the enemy in that state.
Even now, the Horn Clan capital Fólkvangr was still surrounded by the enemy, and he needed to hurry there as soon as possible, so he certainly couldn’t afford to take his time bringing the prisoners back to Wolf Clan territory first.
That left killing them off. It didn’t have to be all of them, but enough to bring their numbers down to something he could reasonably manage and control. It was a valid choice, in a sense, for it was a practice that had been taking place since time immemorial.
More than anything, there was the severe shortage of food supplies to consider. Things were already stretched thin as it is, and now they had twice as many mouths to feed. That would make things much worse.
“Tch, is there really no other way?” Yuuto clicked his tongue in frustration, clenching his fists tightly as he stared out with a grim expression.
When he’d made his decision to come back to this world, he’d also resigned himself to be ready to become as fierce and merciless as a demon if he needed to. But he hadn’t expected to have to make a choice like this so soon after his return.
“Am I being tested? By fate, or by something else?” Yuuto clenched his teeth together so tightly that his molars began to hurt.
If he were the Yuuto from before being sent back to the modern world, he could never have allowed himself to consider the option of killing prisoners, people who weren’t fighting back.
But now...
Now that he knew the truth about Yggdrasil...
“Father, good news, good news!” A cheerful young voice suddenly called out, sweet and out of place on a battlefield, destroying the tension of the moment in an instant.
“Huh?!” Surprised, Yuuto whirled around.
A smiling face as bright as a sunflower, also quite out of place for a battlefield, sprang into view. It was an adorable-looking young girl, perhaps only twelve or thirteen, with her hair tied into a side ponytail on the right.
The girl’s name was Albertina, and she was the older twin sister of Kristina, the girl out on the scouting mission who had been communicating to Yuuto on the transceiver.
Albertina was an Einherjar with the rune Hræsvelgr, Provoker of Winds, and she had a natural talent for assassination, but normally she was an innocent, carefree little girl.
“What’s the good news?” Yuuto asked, though in his mind, he already assumed it was something petty, like that she’d found some of her favorite food in the supplies taken off of the Panther Clan troops.
He found his expectations subverted, in a good way.
“My dad from the Claw Clan is headed this way with fifteen hundred of his soldiers. It looks like he’ll be able to meet up with us by sometime tomorrow.”
“Ah! Seriously?!” Yuuto gasped, and grabbed Albertina’s shoulders as he questioned her, excitedly shaking her back and forth.
“Yeah, seriously. Seriously... Oooghh!” Albertina repeated her answer back to Yuuto, growing dizzy from having her head shaken.
Yuuto realized he must have lost his composure at such great news and shaken her with his full strength.
He chided himself on not having been more gentle with her. She was physically attuned to move at great speeds, her specialty, but other than that, she had the body of a typical girl of her age.
“Oh, but why are you the one here, Al?” Felicia asked, tilting her head to one side quizzically.
It was almost always Kristina’s role to bring these sorts of intelligence reports to Yuuto.
“Kris is out working right now, so I came in her place.”
“Ahh, right,” Yuuto replied with a nod.
Kristina was in the middle of a reconnaissance mission — in other words, she was currently using her ability to erase her presence, and it would be nearly impossible for anyone to find her. Even Kristina’s own spy subordinates would surely have judged it easier to go find Albertina among the Horn Clan army ranks.
“Still, it’s surprising that Botvid would send reinforcements this quickly,” Sigrún remarked.
The Claw Clan patriarch, Botvid, was well known as a shrewd and cunning snake, so much so that he had come to be called the Viper of Bifröst.
Yuuto had heard stories of the time before he was the Wolf Clan’s patriarch, when they had tasted quite a bit of suffering at Botvid’s hands.
Yuuto had assumed that the careful, calculating Botvid wouldn’t make a move to help him while the Wolf Clan still appeared to be at a disadvantage.
He would never have figured that the man would come to his aid now, even before the news reached him of the great victory that had just occurred. It was a happy miscalculation.
“True, but... if the Claw Clan is coming, then things will work out.” Yuuto clenched his fists again, but this time it was with a feeling of triumph.
If he entrusted the Claw Clan troops with escorting the prisoners back to Wolf Clan territory, he could take the whole Horn Clan force with him to go liberate Fólkvangr.
Botvid was the same man who had originally deceived the previous Wolf Clan patriarch and stolen a great deal of Wolf Clan territory, and then later coaxed several of the surrounding smaller clans into coming to his aid and fighting for him. In other words, he had an incredible knack for using others to his benefit.
This was a huge number of prisoners, and so there was a reasonable enough chance that problems could arise while they were being transported. It would be a difficult task, but there were few men more suited to it.
And, just as bad news rarely arrives alone, such would prove to be the same for good news, as well.
“Uncle, we’ve found somebody really important among the prisoners!” Haugspori, who had been put in charge of securing and supervising the prisoners, raced back to Yuuto’s side looking very excited.
“Important?” Yuuto asked.
“Yes. It’s the wife of the Panther Clan’s current patriarch Hveðrungr, and also their previous patriarch: Sigyn.”
Yuuto couldn’t help staring wide-eyed at the beautiful woman who was brought before him.
In Yuuto’s mind, when it came to beauty, Sigrún and Felicia were the two pinnacles out of all the people he knew, but this woman was actually on par with them.
Similarly to Felicia, the woman wore an outfit that revealed a lot of skin and seemed quite provocative.
Perhaps it had something to do with them both being a practitioner of seiðr magic.
Her body was even more voluptuous than Felicia’s, and her arms being tightly bound behind her back made her seem even more erotic.
Haugspori and the various Horn Clan captains that were subordinate to him were also gathered in the large pavilion tent.
A ripple of murmurs and motion spread through them the moment the woman was brought in, and one could see that several of the men were blushing.
However, that had nothing to do with Yuuto’s wide-eyed stare.
It was much simpler than that: He knew her face.
This was the first time he’d seen her in person, but he had “seen” her twice now, in the moments just before the spell Fimbulvetr had affected him.
She had looked then exactly as she looked now.
“Feh. So you really did come back, did you?” The beautiful woman, Sigyn, spat out the words bitterly as she caught sight of Yuuto.
Her tone of voice was much coarser than one might guess from her appearance.
Considering that she’d been the previous patriarch of the Panther Clan, she would need to be a leader capable of keeping a handle on the wild, rowdy men of her clan. Of course she would have to be much more than a pretty face.
“So what sorta trick did you use, huh?” she demanded. “After all, there’s no way in the world that girlie over there would ever be able to break my spell.”
As she said this, Sigyn glanced pointedly at Felicia, who was standing at Yuuto’s side.
In fact, it was just as she was saying: Felicia’s casting of Gleipnir had been easily repelled by Sigyn’s Fimbulvetr.
“I happened to get a little help from a seiðr user with twin runes,” Yuuto said coolly.
“...Wha?!” The response left Sigyn temporarily stunned.
That was only natural, of course. There was only one person in Yggdrasil known to have two runes other than Steinþórr, and that was the þjóðann, the Divine Empress.
The idea of such a vaunted figure getting personally involved in this was completely outside of Sigyn’s expectations.
“Wow, to think you had connections like that, huh?” she said at last. “You are one scary guy. But are you really okay with this? You went and broke through my spell by brute force. I’d say that means you’ll probably never be able to go back to your homeland again.”
“I was prepared to accept that,” Yuuto replied without any hesitation.
Indeed, it was something he had dealt with back when he’d made the decision to return to this world. At this point, it was no longer anything his mind needed to dwell on, even a little.
“Oh, okay,” she said. “So, what’re you gonna do with me? Gonna try to leverage me as a hostage against Rungr? Sorry to break it to you, but right now, me and him are on the outs. I’m not gonna be any use to your negotiations.”
Sigyn glared at Yuuto sharply, then gave a taunting “heh,” laughing at him through her nose.
Yuuto stared back at her, blank-faced and blinking, as if puzzled. He then gave a small burst of laughter.
“What’s so funny, huh?” she demanded.
“Ah, no, my apologies.” Yuuto hurriedly suppressed his laughter.
It was just as Sigyn had said. She was, after all, the previous patriarch, and both the wife and sworn Chalice parent of the current one. It was only natural to first consider her potential value as a hostage.
But while that might be natural, from Yuuto’s perspective, that thinking was completely off-base.
She was someone capable of undoing Felicia’s Gleipnir, and that made her a trump card Yuuto wanted in his back pocket if the time ever came. And so it would be completely absurd to consider using her as a bargaining chip, eventually returning her to the Panther Clan.
Yuuto turned and gave a command. “Treat this woman with care and respect, and escort her back to Iárnviðr. Proper care and respect, mind you.”
“Wha... what?! Say that again! Say that one more time!” Hveðrungr’s voice rose to a shout from the surprise, and his body was shaking.
It wasn’t that he’d failed to hear what had just been reported to him. Rather, the report seemed impossible, far too impossible to be true, and his mind was trying to reject it.
However, reality was a cruel and uncaring mistress.
“Y-yes, sir,” said the nervous Panther Clan soldier. “Th-the main formation of seven thousand men under Lady Sigyn’s command was attacked by the Horn Clan using snakes made of fire, and they were w-wiped out, sir.”
“I’m afraid I can’t have heard you right, after all. Wiped out?! What do you mean, wiped out?!” Hveðrungr screamed in white-hot rage at the soldier in front of him.
This cowering Panther Clan soldier looked to be completely beaten up, with self-treated injuries all over his body, and one might call it cruel to interrogate him in such a harsh way, but in this particular situation, little could be done to avoid that.
“E-exactly that, sir, wiped out,” he said, trembling. “Including myself, I think that fewer than a hundred of us managed to escape.”
“Rgh...! Then why did things end up in such an idiotic state?!” Hveðrungr pressed.
If his clan had simply lost the battle, that would at least be within the realm of understanding.
A field battle was all about momentum. Once things were strongly trending in one side’s favor, the contest was essentially over, and the losing side would quickly retreat.
It was because of this practice that, even in suffering a large defeat, one would only lose around twenty to thirty percent of one’s forces, and even if casualties were much, much worse than average, they would still only be in the range of fifty to sixty percent, at most.
Hveðrungr had never heard of a side losing more than ninety percent of its men in a single battle.
“The enemy blocked off our left and right sides with their ‘wagon walls,’ and used the Körmt River behind us to cut off our retreat. Once we had nowhere to run, they threw these snakes of fire at us, and we couldn’t even try to fight back at that point.”
“What does that even mean?! What are these ‘snakes of fire’?!” Hveðrungr’s screams grew shrill.
He was not a very patient man to begin with. Nothing he’d heard thus far had made any sense, and it had just about driven him mad at this point.
“Th-they were some sort of sticks tied together that made a terrible sound and light and fire, sir. They moved and writhed along the ground just like snakes, and the horses were so terrified that we couldn’t control them at all...”
“Grrrgh, so they had something like that with them... but where did they get it?!”
“Um, sir, about that, it might have just been my seeing things, but when the Horn Clan troops came charging at us, I saw a kid with black hair among them.”
“Wha?!” Hveðrungr was struck speechless. But at the same time, everything seemed to make sense.
This situation that seemed to defy all worldly logic — it was something that could never happen, unless he was involved.
Those so-called fire snakes were just like something that man would use.
“Why?! Just how much do you plan to stand in the way of my conquest, Yuuto?!” Hveðrungr cried out in a voice soaked with resentment, and clenched his teeth tightly together.
Yuuto was Hveðrungr’s accursed nemesis, for whom it felt like all the hate in his heart still wasn’t enough. Hveðrungr had long desired, above all else, the chance to wring Yuuto’s neck with his own two hands.
Upon learning that Sigyn had forced Yuuto back to his own era, Hveðrungr had been furious, and had even pondered whether he could find some way of bringing the young man back to this world.
After learning that it would be impossible, he’d given up and resigned himself to a secondary goal: He would conquer and rule over all the lands of the Myrkviðr and Álfheimr regions.
And he’d been so close, truly only a few steps away from that goal, only to have it torn away from him so completely and utterly!
Even worse, he couldn’t accept the fact that it had happened out of his sight, under someone else’s command.
No, there was no way he could accept that this conflict had already been decided before he even had the chance to fight his enemy directly.
“What shall we do now, Father?” Narfi, standing at Hveðrungr’s side, broached the question with a troubled look.
Narfi was one of the Panther Clan’s veteran generals, an Einherjar with the rune Skinfaxi, the Shining Mane.
The ferocious warrior-general Váli had been killed in action, and now that Sigyn’s status was unknown, Narfi was Hveðrungr’s only remaining close advisor.
“Now that they have defeated Lady Sigyn’s division, the Horn Clan army will surely continue their momentum and press the attack,” the man went on. “And if they possess such a fearsome new weapon, then I regret to say our chance of victory against them is...”
“Shut up!” Hveðrungr lost his temper and cut off Narfi with an angry shout. Right now, his trusted general’s words were only grating to his ears.
He stood there for a while, struggling to suppress his anger, with deep, heaving breaths like the panting of some agitated wild beast.
At last, he seemed to regain some amount of composure, and replied in a strained voice, “I know! Of course I know that much!”
He clenched his mask-covered face in one hand as he spoke.
It was a difficult situation for him to accept, but right now, he couldn’t afford to lose himself to his emotions.
“...We’re retreating,” Hveðrungr said at last.
It was a bitter decision to make, after coming so far against the Horn Clan.
However, just as Narfi had said, the enemy’s mysterious new weapon was fearsome, having allowed them to eradicate a force of seven thousand Panther troops.
Hveðrungr’s detached division had only three thousand.
He still didn’t know the details of this “fire snakes” weapon, and on top of that, the enemy still had their wagon wall tactic, an ironclad defense against cavalry like his.
While Hveðrungr did occasionally lose himself to his violent emotions concerning Yuuto, at his core, he was a calculating person who valued solid logic.
In the end, he wasn’t reckless enough to press his luck in a situation like this.
Pshht.
As Yuuto rode with his forces towards Fólkvangr, the handheld transceiver next to him suddenly let out a telltale burst of static.
He raised it to his ear. “What is it, Kris? Is the Panther Clan up to something?”
Yuuto had tasked Kristina with continuing her reconnaissance, this time in the area around Fólkvangr.
She had complained a bit, saying, You shouldn’t work a child so harshly. But sneaking in among the ranks of an army of such elite, horse-mounted fighters was hardly something any ordinary spy could do.
She was the Einherjar of Veðrfölnir, Silencer of Winds, able to make herself practically invisible. There was no one alive better suited to the task than her.
“Yes, Father,” Kristina replied over the transceiver. “The Panther Clan forces have begun moving south. They likely aim to cross the Körmt River and retreat into Lightning Clan territory.”
“So they’re running. Well, that’s what I expected.” Yuuto leaned back against the rim of the wagon carriage.
Yuuto knew Hveðrungr — or rather, Loptr — as a man who was mild-mannered and spoke kindly, but who was very shrewd and calculating behind the scenes.
He just wasn’t the type to learn the terrible news about losing an entire force, seven thousand of his men, and then put himself and the rest of his army into further danger.
“That makes this a complete, undisputed victory for us,” Kristina said. “Impressive as always, Father.”
“No, we’re not done yet,” Yuuto responded to the praise with a firm denial.
Up until this point, the Panther Clan army had boasted not only superior mobility as a whole, but also their ability to use their signature technique, the Parthian Shot, to kill their pursuers while retreating safely. For that reason, Yuuto had done no more than drive them off each time, keeping himself from pursuing them afterwards.
Perhaps there had been another factor: Deep down, Yuuto had wanted to avoid fighting the sworn older brother he had once respected so much. However, he could no longer afford the luxury of such feelings.
“If we go on letting them attack us whenever they want, they’ll wear us down,” Yuuto said. “This time, we’re taking the fight to them.”
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